New Micropterygid Moths — Dumbleton 
27 
exsertile ovipositor, but it lacks the cutting 
and piercing adaptations present in the Erio- 
craniidae. 
The Agathiphaga pupa has four pairs of 
frontal hairs as against two pairs in the erio- 
craniids, but it lacks the lateral abdominal 
hairs. It also lacks the dorsal abdominal hairs 
of E. purpurella Haw. and the frontal beak 
and the strap-like band on the meso- and 
metathorax of Mnemonica auricyanea Wals. 
Tarsal claws are present in the Agathiphaga 
pupa but are not recorded in the two erio- 
craniid pupae. They are also present in some 
trichopterous pupae. 
The larvae of Agathiphaga, as mentioned 
above, also differ from those of the other 
known micropterygids and approach the 
eriocraniid condition, but this could be a 
result of the specialised larval habitat. 
Hinton (1946^?: 1-4) has proposed a new 
classification for the Lepidoptera. The Micro- 
pterygidae are given ordinal rank as the 
Zeugloptera and are regarded as more primi- 
tive than the Trichoptera, which also retain 
ordinal rank. The Eriocraniidae remain with 
the Lepidoptera and, together with the 
Mnesarchaeidae, comprise the suborder Da- 
conympha. The characters of Agathiphaga, 
intermediate as it is between the Microptery- 
gidae and the Eriocraniidae, make it difficult 
to sustain the proposed classification. 
The weight of morphological evidence is 
for the inclusion of Agathiphaga as a speci- 
alised genus of the Micropterygidae. The 
seed-infesting habit could have arisen as a 
specialised development of the microptery- 
gids, and this is perhaps more likely than that 
it is a further development of the leaf-mining 
habit of the eriocraniids. Also the erio- 
craniids are not known to be represented in 
the Southern Hemisphere. Morphologically 
the adults of Agathiphaga are in several re- 
spects intermediate between the Microptery- 
gidae and the Eriocraniidae, but whether 
Agathiphaga is on the direct line of evolution 
of the Eriocraniidae is uncertain. The fact that 
the food plant of Agathiphaga is also inter- 
mediate in the line of plant evolution be- 
tween the known food plants of these two 
families cannot be regarded as significant in 
the absence of evidence as to the age of the 
association between insect and plant in each 
case. 
BIOLOGY AND DISTRIBUTION OF 
AGATHIPHAGA 
According to Petrie (undated: 14), the 
female cones of Agathis robusta are fertilized 
in September, but the seed takes 15 months 
to mature. At the same time, there are present 
on the tree the maturing cones of the previous 
crop, and these drop their seed in late Decem- 
ber or early January. It is not known when 
the moths fly and lay their eggs or how long 
the larva is in the seed before it is fully fed. 
As the infested seed is not markedly smaller 
than uninfested seed, it might be assumed 
that the seed is not infested until it is nearly 
mature. Some support is given to this thesis 
by Petrie’s note (undated: 13) that seed col- 
lected in October was apparently not infested 
whereas seed collected in December and 
January was infested. I have no information 
on the date of pupation of A. queenslandensis, 
but the larvae of A. vitiensis pupated in the 
spring. Petrie (undated: 9) notes that no 
external hole is seen in infested seed. The 
ovipositor of A. queenslandensis is not adapted 
for piercing the tissues of the cone, and it is 
likely that the eggs are laid on the cone sur- 
face, perhaps at the junction of contiguous 
scales, or thrust into crevices between the 
scales. The flaccid, yellowish, mature larvae 
are reported by Brimblecombe to be able 
to remain alive in the seed for as long as 3 
years, but it is not known what factors 
terminate the diapause. Infested seeds (Fig. 
10^) of Agathis robusta are completely hol- 
lowed out. At both ends of the seed is a 
filling, or plug, of hard black pitchy material. 
Between these is the pupal cell formed by a 
thin dark reddish-brown layer of uniform 
thickness, smooth on the inner surface. The 
external surface of this layer is pale brown or 
